Golden Wood Bows

Golden Wood Bows I meticulously hand craft Osage orange longbow selfbows to particular specifications.

06/18/2026

BILLETS TO BOWS

Along the Way, An Early Pictorial Leading up to My ‘Optimal’ Line Osage Longbows.

05/26/2026

OPTIMAL 38
Osage orange longbow, deflexed, recurved. Measures 62“ nock to nock. Pulls 47 lbs at 28” draw.

BILLETS TO BOWSOptimal 38, Osage LongbowI’ve been working on this billet bow, on and off, every day for over two and hal...
05/23/2026

BILLETS TO BOWS
Optimal 38, Osage Longbow

I’ve been working on this billet bow, on and off, every day for over two and half weeks. The limbs needed every single twist removed for this bow to turn out as intended. By removing the twists, I achieved very close to center shot without cutting deeply into the grain. As of now I’m right at 11/64” past center. That’s 1/2 the diameter of a 11/32nd arrow. Realistically though, it is very difficult to get an exact measurement lol. Lots of sanding and finishing to go.

05/13/2026

BILLETS TO BOWS
Optimal 38 Custom Osage Longbow
bowyer bowyer bower 3Darchery bow bowandarrow selfbow

05/13/2026

BILLETS TO BOWS
Optimal 38 Custom Osage Longbow

04/28/2026

BILLETS TO BOWS
To Be Or Not To Be?, Optimal 37
This Osage longbow is ‘Optimal 37’. It is the outcome of my quest to craft a bow from a questionable set of billets. Truth is, my only concern was the thickness of one of the billets.
The completed bow is deflex, reflex, center shot. It pulls 35 lbs at 28” draw. The reflex in the limbs was accomplished by boiling initial, then later on with a heat gun to refine the reflex, and to get all the little twist out of the limbs. I decided to apply a layer of sinew, primarily to keep the added reflex in the limbs, plus protection from breaking, since the bow is only 60” nock to nock. The tip overlays are burled wood from some kind of tree of southern Tennessee. Thanks, Parker Southgate. For the grip, I stripped and re-dyed a piece of red leather to a color which complimented the tips.

04/01/2026

Optimal 35,

Weight reduced from 60 lbs down to 52 lbs. Note: the arrow used for the speed test weighed 520 grain, and registered 178 fps🔥

A 63.5” Osage orange reflex deflex center shot longbow, constructed of belly billets. The limbs are covered with a tight layer of elk sinew and covered with two large timber rattlers. The tips are cow hoof, and the grip is a shade of gray which compliments the skins. The deflex and site window is natural grain flow. Some of the reflex was introduced prior to the sinew. It maintains a 3” tip over handle reflex after unbraced with a rest. A final note, the top and bottom limbs are a near perfect match due to the belly split.

03/28/2026

BILLETS TO BOWS

To Be Or Not To Be

Shaping and Steam Bending

I’m not real happy with this video. I’ll probably do a longer version for YouTube under Golden Wood Bows

BILLETS TO BOWSTo Be Or Not To BeCan this difficult set of Osage belly billets become Optimal 37, or are they doomed to ...
03/20/2026

BILLETS TO BOWS
To Be Or Not To Be

Can this difficult set of Osage belly billets become Optimal 37, or are they doomed to the burn pile? It’ll be a challenge, but I’m running out of Optimal billets. Chasing to a ring proved especially challenging, because the spring rings are very thin and tight, which is actually a good thing. It has twist and bends that can only be corrected by boiling or steaming, but this wood is strong. Its rings are very dense and lean. Guess I’ll give it a go, and share the transformations, for better or worse.

So it national cat day. This is a pic of my Osage longbow’s tip
10/29/2025

So it national cat day. This is a pic of my Osage longbow’s tip

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